Drug ring used I-Drive hotels to distribute pot, MBI says

Agents said Friday they dismantled a crime ring shipping high-quality marijuana from California to International Drive hotel rooms, where associates would sign for the packages, before moving the drugs to suburban Orlando stash houses.

The Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that 26 suspected associates of the ring are facing charges in what’s being called “Operation Hotel California.” Twenty one suspects are from Florida and five are in California.

Another three people were arrested during raids at suspected stash houses Friday, MBI Director Larry Zwieg said.

“It was a lot of marijuana being sent here — and it was high grade marijuana,” Zweig said, adding that agents have documented 500 pounds of the drug he said the ring has moved just since February.

The MBI said in a statement that agents started tracking the group in December, when agents learned that overnight packages of drugs were being delivered to hotels on International Drive.

Agents say the crime ring’s associates in Central Florida rented rooms and signed for the boxes, which contained thousands of dollars of marijuana. The drugs were then taken by taxi to houses in Seminole and Orange counties, authorities said.

“The cannabis was then delivered to others in the criminal distribution network, who then engaged in wider distribution,” MBI said.

Agents raided several houses Friday: one on Willow Bay Terrace, in Casselberry, and two more on Arden Villas Boulevard and Logandale Drive, both in east Orange County.

Zwieg said guns were also found during the raids, though investigators haven’t tied the group to gangs or street violence.

“We didn’t see a whole lot of violence with this part of the group that we were dealing with,” he said.

MBI says the marijuana supplier was Binh Tran, 35, of Westminster, Calif. The suspected head of the Florida portion of the drug-trafficking organization was 29-year-old Joshua Neal Slemons, authorities said.

Records show Slemons is currently on probation, stemming from a 2012 plea to a Seminole County cocaine charge. A convicted felon, he is also currently facing several controlled substance charges in Orange County.

In addition to marijuana, the group also traded in heroin, cocaine and the synthetic drug “Molly,” investigators said. Tran, according to Zwieg, was also shipping marijuana elsewhere in the country.

He said agents don’t yet know how the Central Florida distributors came to know the California supplier: “How they know each other we’re not sure,” Zwieg said Friday. “I’m sure we’ll learn that when we start doing our interviews today.”

Charges in the case include racketeering, importation of cannabis, trafficking in cocaine over 400 grams, conspiracy to traffic in cocaine over 400 grams, trafficking in 25 pounds or more cannabis, and conspiracy to traffic in cannabis 25 pounds or more.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office, Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, Florida Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Postal Inspection participated in the investigation.

“Agents are currently in the process of locating and arresting defendants at several locations in Central Florida and in California,” MBI’s statement said. “More arrests and seizures are anticipated, as the investigation continues to progress.”

The MBI is a multi-agency task force targeting narcotics, vice and organized crime. Numerous local and federal agencies are part of the MBI, including the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office, several local police agencies and the FBI.

Anyone with information about the drug ring is asked to call MBI at 407-836-9701.